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Who are the Yazidis and why are they being persecuted in Iraq?

U.S. war planes begin dropping humanitarian supplies and targeted airstrikes to protect the Yazidi community in northern Iraq, but who are the Yazidis?

The Yazidis are a small community that follows a 4,000-year-old faith and have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists who call them "devil-worshipers" because of their unique beliefs and practices. (SAFIN HAMED / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

As American war planes begin to launch airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq, a little-known religious minority group has suddenly gained international attention.

The Yazidis community is an ancient, but relatively small religious group that fled the spiritually important town of Sinjar, west of Mosul, over the weekend as Islamic State fighters attacked the town.

As Sinjar fell, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar on foot without water, food or shelter, fearing they would be slaughtered by Islamic State fighters which have killed and prosecuted other religious minorities in Iraq, including Christians.

It is estimated there are nearly 500,000 Yazidis world wide, the majority of whom live in northern Iraq’s Nineveh plains and practice Yazidism. The origins and ethnicity of Yazidism are subject to debate, but the religion incorporates elements of many faiths, including Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, among others.

Because of their “unorthodox” religious beliefs Yazidism is often misunderstood and viewed as a religion that worships the devil.

With the creation of the modern nation-state Yazidis ethnicity has traditionally been viewed as Arab although the KRG which rules over Iraqi Kurdistan claims Yazidis are Kurds.

During Saddam Hussein’s regime he regarded the Yazidis as Arabs which allowed them to avoid the fate of the over 100,000 Kurds who were murdered by the Baathist regime.

With the fall of Saddam after the American invasion, their identity was once again thrown into question and used for political advantage between Baghdad and the KRG in Kurdistan, which is fighting to establish its own independent state craved out of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran.

Linguistically, however, there is a clear link between Kurds and Yazidis, as they both speak Kurmanji, a dialect of the Kurdish language spoken in the northern areas of Kurdistan.

Until this week the community has avoided persecution from Islamic State fighters because Sinjar and the surrounding area had been under Kurdish control until the recent offensive forced Kurdish forces to withdraw.

The Yazidi community also forbids intercaste marriage and prohibits marriages outside the community. Yazidis who choose to marry a non-Yazidi often face social backlash and harsh penalties.

By some estimates as many as 200,000 people, mainly Yazidis, have been displaced after Islamic State fighters attacked Sinjar and the surrounding area.

On Friday, Barack Obama said U.S. military aircraft dropped food and water to many Yazidis trapped on top of Mount Sinjar after officials warned they faced starvation and dehydration if they remained on the mountain surrounded by Islamic State fighters.

Obama also authorized airstrikes against Islamic State fighters to help avert a “genocide” in the country hours after the United Nations Special Representative for Iraq warned that “a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar.”

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